


The Waters Compassed Me About

by emilyenrose



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 01:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5689423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose/pseuds/emilyenrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You were seeking me,” said Maglor at last. “Why?”</p><p>“I didn’t know an Elf could look as bad as you do,” Elros said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waters Compassed Me About

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arrogantemu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrogantemu/gifts).



“I have a certain parting to make,” said the King to his people as the time appointed for the boarding of Círdan’s ships drew close: and with a smile he went apart from them, and walked along the shoreline where the Great Sea lapped the shingle. The Men who were not yet the Men of Númenor assumed he went to meet his brother the Elf: though some remarked that they thought Elrond had already departed eastwards.  Elros whistled cheerfully to himself as he went, and his gaze turned again and again to the West. Three days in this fashion he went along the coast as it grew ever lonelier. Late in the afternoon of the third day he sat down upon the shore and remarked, as it seemed to the empty air, “Well, I shall wait, then; though I cannot wait forever.”

Then he laughed to himself as though he had thought of some great jest.

An hour or two went by while Elros watched the waves. After a while he stood up and stripped off and went swimming in the surf. The sport was one he had always delighted in. When he came back to shore there was another waiting there.

“A moment,” Elros said to him: and he dried himself off, and dressed again. Then he turned to the Elf and looked upon him a little while.

“You were seeking me,” said Maglor at last. “Why?”

“I didn’t know an Elf could look as bad as you do,” Elros said. “I had a little speech prepared, but I repent it unspoken. I have some waybread: Mannish, not Elven, but good enough for all that, and I will share it. Sit a while.”

Maglor gave him a half-bow. “I will hear your speech: but I will not sit, nor linger if there is nothing you wish to say.”

“Why not? Do you have an urgent appointment elsewhere?”

Maglor looked at him silently.

Elros shook his head. “No: that was ill said,” he said. “I must say that of all things I never expected to feel sorry for you.”

Still there was no answer.

“And the truth is,” said Elros, “I don’t. Except when I do. It is the way of Men: we are ever changeful.”

“It is true, then,” Maglor said. “You have chosen the Gift of your forefathers.”

“I have chosen _something_ ,” said Elros. “Is it a gift? Perhaps.”

“You are not sure?”

“If I wanted to be sure,” Elros said, “I would have been an Elf. May I tell you what I think of you? I have wanted to tell you what I think of you for close on eighty years: which for a Man is a very long time.”

“If that is why you sought me out,” said Maglor, and then he stood silent, as though awaiting a blow.

Elros frowned at him. “I tell you, then, that I know you to be one of high race and great spirit: not without wisdom, and not without courage: not without honour, either, as my brother and I have cause to know. And for eighty years and more I have never been able to understand you. I still do not. Can you explain it?”

Maglor was silent a long while.

At last he said, “To stand on the brink of the abyss, and look down into the Nothing that goes on forever; to feel then the cliff crumbling under your feet, and cry to the Darkness _No! Not this way! Not yet!_ – and to go unheard: for the Darkness hears nothing, since the Darkness itself is Nothing – before that end, I tell you, all wisdom, all courage, and all honour must fail.”

Elros looked at him a little while.

“Is that all?” he said.

“It is more than enough. You cannot know what it is like,” said Maglor. “I pray you will never know; for I love you well.”

Elros said, “But that is the Doom of Men.”

Maglor said nothing.

“To stare blindly into darkness, and know that one way or another you must go into it: the great no less than the small, the brave man no less than the coward, and the wise no less than the fool – for which reason there can be no very strong reason to prefer the courses of wisdom and courage, or to choose high deeds over low pleasures, since none of them will endure in any case – to know yourself ruined before you begin, to howl for the injustice of it though no ears will hear, and then all the same to go into the dark, shoved off the cliff by the hands of Fate unless you have the strength to jump first, and all to the same end either way – what else is that but the Doom of all Men?”

“The Gift of Men,” said Maglor, “lies beyond the knowledge of the Eldar.”

“I don’t believe it does,” said Elros. “I think you just don’t like it very much.” He looked again out to Sea, and added, “Well, we don’t like it either. But despite it – nay, perhaps because of it – we are not altogether worthless. I still do not understand you: either of you: any of you.”

“Why did you seek me out?” Maglor said.

“I wasn’t sure: but it seems it was to tell you that I don’t feel sorry for you at all,” Elros said. “My brother still would. He misses you.” He glanced at Maglor’s expression and added, “Not that I expect that to move you now. Still, I am for the crossing and the Island of the Gift. We Men of the West shall do our best with it, for what little that is worth, and some years hence I shall die. Therefore you should not expect to see me again.”

Maglor said, “It seems to me that you forebode some darkness to come.”

“On the contrary,” said Elros, “my hope is high: though I have not the slightest doubt that I am for the abyss, one way or another, along with all my works. Perhaps the Gift, as you call it, is simply the gift of certainty.”

“I do not believe that,” Maglor said.

“If you do not believe it for me,” said Elros, “why do you insist on it for yourself?” And he laughed out loud. “No, do not try to answer; I know your answer; it is the fool’s answer and the coward’s, and what Man has not made it? Yet the Sun keeps rising!” He cast down at Maglor’s feet the packet of waybread the Elf had rejected. “There: have that. If you will not eat with me for your pride, still you should eat.”

“Do you think it is pride that moves me now?” said Maglor.

“I know _you_ don’t think so,” Elros said. “Let us bid one another farewell: for our fates, you know, are sundered – one way or another. So fare well, wanderer, as best you may.”

He turned then and walked away along the shore, back in the direction of the harbour and the ships, three days’ journey away.

 “The grace of the Valar go with you,” Maglor said softly when he was already some way gone.

Elros stopped, though he did not turn. “I may go deaf in my old age, but I am not deaf yet,” he remarked loudly over the sighing of the waves. “You are a stubborn old fool, you know. Maybe I _am_ sorry for you. One day I shall make up my mind. I suppose I had better not take too long about it.”

He glanced back as he spoke the last words. But Maglor was nowhere to be seen.

**Author's Note:**

> Your prompt asked for Feanorians, Finrod, or smug Sauron: I managed to get in _a_ Feanorian? I TRIED.


End file.
